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Saturday, 20 May 2017

The Donald of Arabia?

“There
are today essentially four options for Western policy [in the Middle East]: to
do nothing; to engage with others in humanitarian relief; to construct a
coalition of allies and partners for short-term intervention in Syria; or to
construct a coalition of allies and partners for long-term intervention more
widely”.

The
New Geopolitics of Terror: Demons and Dragons

William
Hopkinson and Julian Lindley-French (Routledge, January 2017)

Alphen, Netherlands. 20
May. Another day, another press storm. President Donald J. Trump has just
arrived in Saudi Arabia for his first official foreign foray. As he stepped off
Air Force One in Riyadh he was hunted
by the press pack over his alleged description of sacked FBI Director James
Comey as a “nut job”, during a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov. Indeed, one could be forgiven watching CNN or the BBC for thinking this
trip is of secondary importance. It is not. The de facto disengagement of President Obama from the Middle East
helped create a regional-strategic vacuum that Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Iran
and Russia have sought to fill. President Trump’s visit will thus raise
expectations that the Administration is about to embark on a new Middle Eastern
strategy. What are the strategic options open to the Americans?

Trump certainly wants to
convey a sense that the US is re-engaging in the Middle East, and that Saudi
Arabia remains a vital US ally. In Riyadh President Trump will pay an official
visit to His Majesty King Salman bin Abdulaziz, and His Royal Highness Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as well as meet the leaders of the Gulf States. At the same time, the President also wants to
showcase his America First by closing
a new arms deal with Saudi Arabia worth $100bn to the US, and possibly as much
as $300bn over ten years. Given the controversial Saudi leadership of an Arab
coalition in attacks on Houthi rebels in Yemen, such a deal will be politically
sensitive to say the least. Critically, both the Americans and the Saudis want
to send a message to the Iranians about reinvigorated US leadership in the
region to counter Iranian action in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. And, even if nothing
is said publicly, President Trump will doubtless seek to buttress the security
of Israel by pointing out to the Saudis (to loosely paraphrase Machiavelli)
that the sworn enemy of Iran is in some way Riyadh’s ‘friend’.

President Trump will also
emphasise his Administration’s focus on counter-terrorism by attending a
conference at which leaders from forty Muslim states will discuss how to combat
violent extremism. Trump will offer US support for all Muslim leaders willing
to engage and destroy Salafist Jihadis. President Trump’s position is not
without risk as Saudi Arabia is the spiritual homeland of Modernist Salafism
from which Sunni Islamists draw their inspiration.

President Trump will need
to properly grasp the complexity of the strategic choices the US faces in the
Middle East, the costs it will impose, the policy consistency over time it will
demand of Washington, and the set-backs it will undoubtedly face. In my latest
book, The New Geopolitics of Terror:
Demons and Dragons, which is of course brilliant and very reasonably priced,
my friend and colleague William Hopkinson and I chart the recent history of
failed contemporary Western strategy in the Middle East, the consequences of
that failure, and the stark choices on offer to the US and its allies.

There are roughly four
strategic options. First, the US could do next to nothing, which might save
American lives in the short-term, but will leave a dangerous and
chronically-instable region to fester and open to the interference of other
outside actors. Second, the US could focus on the delivering of the kind of conscience-salving
humanitarian relief beloved of Europeans, but avoid getting engaged in
political strategy. Third, the US could seek to strengthen the Coalition against ISIL so that it is
better equipped to attack Islamic State, and maybe better able to influence
events in Syria, but avoid a region-wide strategy.

However, if President
Trump really does want the Middle East to live at peace with itself and others then
the US will need to consider a plan of engagement for the entire Middle East
and North Africa. That aim will, in turn, need the Trump administration to
realise a fundamental political truism in the Middle East: the state therein
exists at the pleasure of Islam, but Islam most certainly does not exist at the
pleasure of states. Or, to put it another way, ‘successful’ American strategy
in the Middle East will be dependent upon a new accommodation with Islam.

There is also a profound
paradox in the US position that Washington will also need to address. States
like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States have bought off internal Islamist
opposition by using oil and gas revenues to fund the expansion of
fundamentalist Islam across the world. As America becomes self-sufficient in
oil, and as other reserves of hydrocarbons are discovered the income, which has
for decades enabled regimes in the Middle East to avoid reform, will decline,
and with it what limited stability that today exists.

The Middle East is in
need of deep reform and real US strategy will need to reflect that need. Profound reforms are need in governance and
government across the region, as well as society-changing investments in
education and employment that will take billions of dollars over many years to
realise. Yes, much of that investment could come from the region itself.
However, the paradox of such change is that it will undoubtedly undermine the very
leaders that President Trump will meet this weekend.

Perhaps the real test for
President Trump will be to separate his own narrow, domestic political and
business interests, from the foreign and security policy of the great country
he now leads. The President would do
well to heed the words of T.E. Lawrence, who knew a thing or two about Western
failure in the region. “The foreigners come out here [Arabia] always to teach,
whereas they had much better learn, for, in everything but wits and knowledge,
the Arab is generally the better man of the two”.

As President Trump drives
into Riyadh he will pass under a huge banner which reads, “Together We Prevail”.
I wonder.

About Me

Julian Lindley-French is Senior Fellow of the Institute of Statecraft, Director of Europa Analytica & Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow, National Defense University, Washington DC. An internationally-recognised strategic analyst, advisor and author he was formerly Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy at the Netherlands Defence Academy,and Special Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Leiden. He is a Fellow of Respublica in London, and a member of the Strategic Advisory Group of the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington.
Latest books: The Oxford Handbook on War 2014 (Paperback) (2014; 709 pages). (Oxford: Oxford University Press) & "Little Britain? Twenty-First Strategy for a Middling European Power". (www.amazon.com)
The Friendly-Clinch Health Warning: The views contained herein are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any institution.